Lies and Pretense
by candycity
Summary: And that's all her life is - a tangled web of lies and a silly children's game of pretend. One-shot. Part One of the Regrets series.


**Okay, so this is the first part of a three-part kindasorta series called _Regrets_. They're not related in any way, but they're just little pieces about the lives of three characters - Petunia Dursley, Dudley Durseley and Ginny Weasley. At least that's the plan for now.**

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

_Part One: __Lies and Pretense_

She hated her sister. Well – not _really_, but she really, really disliked her.

Before the magic it was bad enough. Lily was the _oh-so-pretty_ one with the fiery locks and the sparkling emerald eyes, and Petunia was just the 'sweet-looking' one with the honey-coloured hair and light eyes. Lily was the straight-A student, while Petunia was the 'not bad' one, with a smattering of A's among all those B's and C's. Lily was so mischievous and kindhearted and outgoing, and Petunia was just Lily's boring older sister.

But Petunia didn't care. Lily was her sister, and sisters loved each other. So she averted her eyes when people half-heartedly said she was 'kind of pretty, too', and pretended not to notice when Lily twirled around in her new Christmas dress in front of her relatives and got cheers and applause, but when Petunia wore her new outfit, she got a pat on the head for having 'good taste'.

Petunia tolerated it all because Lily was her sister, and a good one at that. She always let Petunia have tha larger half of the cookie, the comfier chair, the more candy bars during Halloween. But when she received _that_ letter, even Petunia couldn't take it anymore. Their parents fussed over Lily so much that they practically forgot that they had another daughter. Because who would care about ordinary, obedient Petunia, when they had pretty, intelligent, magical, _perfect_ little Lily?

First she tried to get into Hogwarts as well. Maybe, if they let her in, their parents would fuss over her and pet her and pay attention to her, as they did Lily. After all, she was Lily's sister, and if she could get in, why not her, Petunia? But the Headmaster replied with a polite rejection, and she was overcome by hurt and anger, her ego horribly bruised by the rejection.

So she turned her jealousy into spite. She convinced herself, after many nights, that magic was abnormal. If it was normal, why wouldn't everyone have it? No, magic wasn't right; it was an abomination of nature. And people who weren't normal were freaks – which made Lily a freak.

Of course she'd never tell her parents that Lily was an abnormality – they neglected her enough as it was. So she contented herself with having endless quarrels with her sister, calling her insults that ranged from 'total weirdo' to 'unnatural freak'. She knew Lily, being the perfect sister she was, would never, ever even _dream_ of telling.

Then came the day Lily went away to that freak school. Petunia was ecstatic, and even hugged her sister, she was so glad that she was going away. But during the long period she was away, her parents were distant and quiet, and Petunia despaired. Her mood worsened when she realised she did miss her sister, just as her parents teased her that she would be. She missed Lily's quiet defiance and meekness to Petunia's insults, and her laughing eyes – she missed _Lily_.

But then, in her third year, everything changed. She announced that she was dating Anthony Layman, and suddenly, the spotlight was on _her_, not Lily, for once. She was elated.

When she was nineteen, she made the big announcement – her engagement to Vernon Dudley, the successful businessman and actually owned a company which made drills, that he had founded himself at the age of twenty-one. And at once, Lily was forgotten. But her brief moment of glory was rudely snatched away when James Potter, the complete _git_, crashed the wedding and proposed to Lily in front of everyone they knew during the dinner.

She was glad when she moved in with Vernon, away from the freak and her idiot fiancee. For years she went without talking to her sister, only meeting her twice in a period of five years – once to attend the wedding (after all, if she didn't attend her sister's wedding, people would start to wonder), and to inform the happy couple about their parent's death.

Lily, of course, sent her sister and her brother-in-law many things. Little gifts, long letters, and family photographs, and she actually presented her sister with a huge gift basket to celebrate Dudley's birth. Petunia simply sent them a formal card congratulating the birth of their baby son, along with an awful vase that Vernon's sister Marge was about to throw away. So many years had passed, but Petunia still hadn't forgave her sister for stealing away her childhood. However, her hatred of her sister soon faded, and every night, she would tell herself that one day, she would apologise to Lily. But every day she woke up, her pride would stop her, and she would remind herself that they were still young; she'd do it tomorrow, or next week, or next month.

Then one night, she received a phone call informing her of Lily and James' deaths. She was taken aback and horrified, only vaguely wondering what had happened to Lily's son whom she had never yet met. But by then, she had learnt to conceal her feelings, as she did with her jealousy as a small child. So she hid her guilt and regret, and put on a mask of indifference, showering all of her attention on her infant son so as to avoid thinking of Lily.

But a week later, she received a letter from the man who had rejected her from that freak school so many years ago, informing her that Lily's son, the year-old Harry James Potter, was to come into her and her husband's care. She convinced herself that it was a joke. But the next day, when she went to get the letters from the letter-box, she found a basket on the floor with a baby inside. A baby with a thin lightning scar on his forehead, a tuft of jet-black hair and sparkling emerald eyes – Lily's eyes.

She'd bent over, numb, to pick up the child just as Vernon arrived at the door, demanding to know what was taking her so long. Before long they were all in the living room, Dudley screaming at the top of his voice, and Petunia half-heartedly explaining what, exactly, her sister, her freak husband, and most likely the child, was. Then she noticed the note in the basket that appeared blank to Vernon but was covered with familiar script to her eyes, telling her about the true reasons of the adult Potters' murder.

Somehow or another, she'd managed to convince Vernon that if they dropped him off at the orphanage and he started showing signs of 'unnaturalness', as Vernon called it; they could perhaps trace the child back to them, and maybe expose the fact that they were related to such abominations. Anyway, she added, it was best to try to stamp the magic out of him – then maybe he could become normal, like the rest of them.

They would simply tell him, when he was older, that his parents had died in a car crash – that was common enough. If he inquired about his scar – well, scars were common enough. They agreed to say that it was a coincidence it was lightning bolt-shaped, and he had gotten it while falling out of his high chair as a baby. He would never, ever know that he was in fact a wizard.

She'd lived her entire life pretending – that she wasn't jealous of Lily, that she didn't want to be able to turn teacups into tadpoles, that she didn't care that Lily had died – and she'd pretend a bit more. She didn't have a choice, anyway. Because it was her fault, after all; to start the web of lies, tangled in each other, with one little white lie – and continue weaving more and more little white lies until her life became just that – nothing more than a web of lies and a silly children's game of pretend.


End file.
